Resilience in Children: Two Awards for Sapling Minds
When I first received an email telling me Sapling Minds had been nominated for the LUXlife Parent & Baby Awards, my first thought wasn't particularly profound.
"Is this a phishing scam?"
After a little investigating, I discovered that it actually wasn't phishing, and it was in fact very real. Sapling Minds had been put forward by the LUXlife team in recognition of its work in wellbeing and resilience development in children. That email alone gave me reason to pause.
Then came another email.
Following LUXlife's research and evaluation process, Sapling Minds had received not one, but two awards:
There was surprise. There was certainly pride. But more than anything, there was an enormous sense of gratitude.
Because for me, the significance isn't really the awards themselves. It's what they recognise.
The work began with a different question
Sapling Minds grew from looking at the challenges children and adults were experiencing and wondering what might change if we started earlier.
What if we didn't wait until someone was overwhelmed before giving them the skills to understand what was happening within them?
What if children learned, at an earlier age while their sense of self was still taking shape, how to navigate disappointment, comparison, pressure and uncertainty without allowing those experiences to define who they believed they were?
And what if the adults around them were better supported too?
Those questions have continued to shape Sapling Minds.
The work has evolved considerably since it began, but the thread underneath it hasn't: how do we help people develop the emotional foundations to carry what life asks of them without losing themselves along the way?
Because resilience in children doesn't grow in isolation
Working in children's wellbeing also makes something else increasingly difficult to ignore.
We cannot separate the wellbeing of children from the adults and environments around them.
A parent trying to help their child regulate their emotions may be doing so at the end of a day in which their own capacity has been stretched thin.
An adult who wants their child to know that achievement doesn't determine their worth may be struggling to believe the same thing about themselves (I see this very regularly in my work).
And many of the patterns we experience as adults didn't suddenly appear in adulthood. They have histories.
This is part of why the work of Sapling Minds has expanded beyond children.
Today, that same preventative philosophy informs work with people navigating change, self-doubt, pressure and the feeling that something isn't working the way they want it to, even when life may look perfectly functional from the outside.
The context changes. The underlying human need often doesn't.
We need ways of meeting challenge that don't require us to disconnect from ourselves in order to keep going.
What these awards mean to me
I don't see these awards simply as recognition of Sapling Minds. I see them as recognition that the challenges this work responds to are worth paying attention to.
That children's emotional wellbeing matters before there is a crisis.
That supporting the adults around them matters too.
That resilience can mean more than becoming better at carrying increasingly unsustainable loads.
And that there is value in helping people build emotional awareness, self-trust and healthier ways of navigating the demands placed upon them.
Being recognised internationally for work that began with those beliefs is something I feel incredibly grateful for.
But the part that matters most isn't having two new award titles beside the Sapling Minds name. It's knowing that the conversation is being noticed.
Because every time preventative wellbeing is taken seriously, we move a little closer to changing what we accept as normal for this generation and the ones that follow.
And that is something worth celebrating.
If something here feels familiar
Sometimes you know exactly what needs to change.
More often, you simply know that the way things are working now isn't how you want them to keep feeling.
If you're wondering what support might make sense for you, your family, your school or your workplace, you don't need to work that out alone.
A free 30-minute consultation is simply a place to start the conversation. We can explore what's happening, what you would like to be different, and what pathway might be useful from here, whether that's through Sapling Minds or somewhere else entirely.
